Film Review Vol. 31 No. 2, February 1981

Posted on 30th June 2018 in "Times Square"

Cover (p. 1) of Film Review Vol 31 No 2 February 1981

Contents entry from Film Review Vol 31 No 2 February 1981, contents page (p. 3)  text:  47 TIMES SQUARE Adventures of two teenage girls (Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado) and all-night disc jockey Tim Curry who gives a boost to their dream of rock stardom.

Times Square probably hadn’t had its January 15th opening yet when the February issue of Film Review came out. Unlike the article in the previous month’s issue, this isn’t a review at all, but a promotional summary of the film, with the exception of the backhanded compliment that most of the movie’s appeal is in the casting of Robin and Trini.

Film Review Vol 31 No 2 February 1981, p. 47  text:  HARD TIMES  Times Square is a movie about youth. New York and rebellion — with a prominent soundtrack of New Wave music. Two girls, from totally opposite backgrounds, find themselves thrown together in the same private ward undergoing psychiatric tests. In spite of their initial incongruity, the girls find a common link in that they have both been misunderstood for most of their young lives. In retaliation they escape their remedial surroundings and disappear into the heart of the Big Apple.  Nicky Marotta, the stronger, older and more street-wise of the two girls, instils a rebelliousness into the weaker, 12-year-old Pamela Pearl, and together they form a united attack against everything Pamela's father, and the bourgeois in general, stand for. Not before long the daring duo earn a certain infamy following a series of amusing and some rather more destructive pranks, including pilfering on the one hand and the levering of television sets off the top of New York apartment blocks on the other. With the assistance of a sympathetic DJ, the girls also gain air time and a wider notoriety, and are even allowed to sing their protest songs over the radio.  If it hadn't been for the casting of 15-year-old newcomer Robin Johnson as Nicky and Trini Alvarado (who played the lead in Robert Altman's Rich Kids) as Pamela, the film might well have lost a lot of the appeal it has. Tim Curry completes the billing as the DJ up against more than he can handle, with Peter Coffield as Pamela's short-sighted father.  Times Square is an EMI release and was directed by Alan Moyle, with songs by The Pretenders, Lou Reed, Suzi Quatro, Robin Johnson, and many others.  Times Square can also lay claim to being the first major release to present a look at New Wave music.  Tim Curry as the late-night DJ Robin Johnson as the rebellious Nicky Trini Alvarado as the introverted Pamela

HARD TIMES

Times Square is a movie about youth. New York and rebellion — with a prominent soundtrack of New Wave music. Two girls, from totally opposite backgrounds, find themselves thrown together in the same private ward undergoing psychiatric tests. In spite of their initial incongruity, the girls find a common link in that they have both been misunderstood for most of their young lives. In retaliation they escape their remedial surroundings and disappear into the heart of the Big Apple.

Nicky Marotta, the stronger, older and more street-wise of the two girls, instils a rebelliousness into the weaker, 12-year-old Pamela Pearl, and together they form a united attack against everything Pamela’s father, and the bourgeois in general, stand for. Not before long the daring duo earn a certain infamy following a series of amusing and some rather more destructive pranks, including pilfering on the one hand and the levering of television sets off the top of New York apartment blocks on the other. With the assistance of a sympathetic DJ, the girls also gain air time and a wider notoriety, and are even allowed to sing their protest songs over the radio.

If it hadn’t been for the casting of 15-year-old newcomer Robin Johnson as Nicky and Trini Alvarado (who played the lead in Robert Altman’s Rich Kids) as Pamela, the film might well have lost a lot of the appeal it has. Tim Curry completes the billing as the DJ up against more than he can handle, with Peter Coffield as Pamela’s short-sighted father.

Times Square is an EMI release and was directed by Alan Moyle, with songs by The Pretenders, Lou Reed, Suzi Quatro, Robin Johnson, and many others.

Times Square can also lay claim to being the first major release to present a look at New Wave music.

Tim Curry’s photo is UK Press Kit photo #4, which had been previously published in Mediascene Prevue Vol. 2 No. 2, Sept.-Oct. 1980, and The Aquarian, April 23-April 30 1980. Robin’s is TS-57-26/1 from the US Press Material folder, which was used for both the soundtrack album cover and the North American movie posters, and published, oh, lots of places previously. Seriously, I’m sure I’ve already listed them somewhere. Maybe next time it turns up I’ll do another reassessment, but not today.

The unusually sultry photo of Trini, however, hasn’t appeared anywhere else, as far as I know.

 

Why did I say earlier that the movie hadn’t opened yet? Because there was an ad announcing its opening on page 10.

TIMES SQUARE movie advertisement, from Film Review Vol 31 No 2 February 1981, p. 10

This is the exact same ad I posted on December 7, 2016. Yes, we now know that someone cut up a copy of this magazine and sold the pieces, and yep, I bought one. It’s a shame that these artifacts tend to be worth more sold by the half-page, but here we are.

 

(Yeah, this post should have gone up over a year ago, probably between Films Illustrated, Vol. 10 No. 113 and Movie 81 No. 2. I had everything ready to go, and somehow accidentally passed over it. Well, here it is now.)

 

The previous posts mentioned above (except for the many soundtrack and poster variants):

Film Review, Vol. 31 No. 1, January 1981
Times Square UK Press Kit (post 2 of 4)
Times Square isn’t a punk picture”
“The Trend Settles in New York”
Times Square Press Material folder (post 1 of 5)
UK Movie Ad
Films Illustrated, Vol. 10 No. 113
Movie 81 No. 2

 

 

Hard times (article, AAT ID: 300048715)
Film Review Vol. 31 No. 2, February 1981, p. 47 (magazine (periodical), AAT ID: 300215389)
29.6 x 21.2 cm. (work);
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0002_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 771 px (W), 96 dpi, 520 kb
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0004_p3_detail_800px.jpg
235 px (H) x 800 px (W), 96 dpi, 114 kb
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0007_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 762 px (W), 96 dpi, 410 kb
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0007_image_1_800px.jpg
688 px (H) x 800 px (W), 96 dpi, 242 kb
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0007_image_2_800px.jpg
800 px (H) x 474 px (W), 96 dpi, 188 kb
1981-02 TS Film Review Feb 1981 V31 N2 – 0007_image_3_800px.jpg
800 px (H) x 473 px (W), 96 dpi, 184 kb
(images)
 

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+

 

Robin and Trini “Bandphotos”, UK 1981

Posted on 18th June 2018 in "Times Square"

More recently-turned-up Times Square publicity from England. Exactly how these fit in with the rest of it, I’m not sure. I’m guessing they were relatively early UK publicity, since the photos still have the American numbers on them. Perhaps before their own publicity machine got going, EMI contracted with Alan Band to send out photos of the stars. So, maybe there’s a Tim Curry Bandphoto out there somewhere as well.

The photo of Robin is her out-of-costume headshot, the only one she or any of the cast got. We’ve previously seen the American version and another UK version distributed by ITC, one of the movie’s co-producing companies. Looking at them now, the US version has been shrunk to fit with the AFD caption at the bottom, while the ITC version looks like its caption stripe has been placed over top of this Bandphoto version. The Bandphoto caption has been severely edited from the one accompanying the other two, which read “Robin Johnson makes her motion picture acting and singing debut after being discovered by chance at her high school in Brooklyn for the co-starring role with Tim Curry and Trini Alvarado in ‘Times Square.'”

The photo of Trini in costume as Pammy is the one used on the US movie poster and the soundtrack album cover. It was included in the US Press Material folder and appeared in the AFD Campaign Pressbook. The Bandphoto caption, judging by the initials, was edited by Alan Band himself to be far more breathlessly exciting than the US caption had been (“Trini Alvarado, who made an impressive screen debut in Robert Altman’s “Rich Kids,” now is co-starred with Robin Johnson and portrays Pamela Pearl, troubled daughter of an ambitious politician, who becomes a runaway and a rebel against authority in “Times Square.”)

The blue Bandphoto stamps read:

MUST
RETURN

CREDIT
BANDPHOTO
ALAN BAND ASSOCIATES
25 LONGDOWN ROAD
FARNHAM, SURREY, ENGLAND

I’m surprised that this particular photo of Trini — this specific print — is maybe the only item I’ve found that’s showing any age-related image problems (the discoloration along her left cheek). Considering their age, all the Times Square items I’ve come across have held up remarkably well.

The previous posts mentioned above:

Robin Johnson’s Times Square Headshot, “TS-Spec.3”
Headshot, ITC version
Times Square Press Material folder (post 2 of 5)
AFD Campaign Pressbook (pages 1-4)

 

 

TS-Special/3
black-and-white photograph, AAT ID: 300128347
UK ; 22.9 x 20.1 cm. (work)
TS-Special 3 auto_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 951 px (W), 96 dpi, 235 kb (image)

TS-Special 3 back_layers_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 953 px (W), 96 dpi, 211 kb (image)

TS-11-25/5
black-and-white photograph, AAT ID: 300128347
UK ; 23.2 x 20.2 cm. (work)
TS-11-24-5 Trini headshot UK_auto_layers_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 940 px (W), 96 dpi, 329 kb (image)

TS-11-24-5 Trini headshot UK_back_manual_layers_1080px.jpg
1080 px (H) x 940 px (W), 96 dpi, 257 kb (image)

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+

 

15 or 16 UK Promo Photos

Posted on 6th June 2018 in "Times Square"

As promised, here are all I have so far from the series of 8×10 black and white publicity stills from the UK, whose only true common denominator is that they have a small one- or two-digit number on a tiny inset square as part of the print. The typical still from the US has a handwritten string of letters and numbers. Some of these have captions pasted to their backs, some have “TIMES SQUARE” stamped on their backs, the ones that came with the UK Press Kit matched up with numbers on an enclosed caption sheet, although I don’t think my copy of that Press Kit was complete.

I’m not sure if I have fifteen or sixteen of these because there are two #4s. The highest number I have is 36, implying that there are twenty or twenty-one more out there somewhere.

In preparing this post, I noticed something. I have two copies of number 20, and they’re not identical.

The second copy is darker and cropped differently. I thought perhaps it was something I might have done when digitizing them, but the number is in a different place. It’s possible I made one look a little darker than the other, but I’m sure I didn’t crop away that much of the first one, and, well, the number is part of the print. It seems there may have been multiple printings of these stills. Perhaps the #4 of Pammy and her father is a reprint of a photo that’s supposed to have a different number, and whoever stuck the number on and printed it made a mistake.

The photos above previously appeared in these posts, except for the second copy of #20:

Times Square UK Press Kit (post 2 of 4)
Times Square UK Press Kit (post 3 of 4)
“6”
UK Promo Photos 4, 13, and 21, 1980-81
UK Promo Photos 20 and 26, 1980-81
UK Promo Photo #29
“34”
Nicky Marotta, 1980

 

 

Times Square publicity stills 1, 3, 4, 4 [2nd version], 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 20, 20 [2nd version], 21, 26, 29, 34, 36
black-and-white photographs, AAT ID: 300128347
UK ; 20.3 x 25.4 cm. (works)

 

Times Square ©1980 StudioCanal/Canal+